Football

Stanley keeper has a freaky Friday

ON-loan keeper Marcus Bettinelli admits he has had few stranger nights in football than Friday – after discovering at half time that parent club Fulham had changed their manager, then seeing Accrington Stanley lose from 2-0 up.

Bettinelli has impressed since joining Stanley from Fulham on a season-long loan but recent months have been more eventful than he ever imagined.

First Fulham replaced Martin Jol with Rene Meulensteen as manager, before the 21-year-old received a phone call on Christmas Day informing him that he was being recalled by the Premier League club because of an injury to Maarten Stekelenburg.

Bettinelli sat on the bench for Fulham for three games – wins over Norwich and West Ham, either side of an astonishing 6-0 loss at Hull – before returning to Stanley.

On Friday he helped the Reds to a 2-0 half-time lead at home to Scunthorpe but the visitors came back to win 3-2.

Meanwhile, the news was filtering through that Fulham had appointed their third manager of the season, former Bayern Munich boss Felix Magath, in place of Meulensteen.

“I didn’t know until half time when one of the lads who wasn’t in the squad told me,” Bettinelli said.

On the morning of Friday’s match Bettinelli had been baffled when he read reports that he may be recalled again by Fulham – something that did not turn out to be the case.

“I saw it on Sky Sports, I don’t really know what that was about,” he said.

“I got a couple of texts saying, ‘Are you going back?’.

“I said, ‘I don’t think so, no-one’s told me anything!’.

“I know Maarten Stekelenburg got a cut above the eye against Liverpool but I think he should be fine.”